People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.
Interpretation
Curiosity is an active pursuit of knowledge, not something that can be passive or idle.
This quote emphasizes that true curiosity drives individuals to seek out knowledge and understanding actively, rather than merely existing without purpose. Leo Rosten's assertion that curiosity cannot be idle highlights the importance of engagement and the relentless pursuit of discovery, suggesting that a genuine curiosity always propels us towards exploration and learning.
In practice
Using this quote during a motivational speech about the importance of lifelong learning.
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.
We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.
I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.
When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, have you grown old.
It ought not to be unpleasant to say that which one honestly believes or disbelieves. That it so constantly is painful to do so, is quite enough obstacle to the progress of mankind in that most valuable of all qualities, honesty of word or of deed.
Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge. . . and the longest life is too short.
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